Welcome to Future Transport Tasmania

We are here to lobby for better public transport and rail infrastructure in Tasmania. We aim to find solutions to allow all Tasmanians to have environmentally responsible and affordable commuting options to get around our state and towns. A more detailed mission statement can be found in the left column or <here>.

Find our articles below, starting with the most recent ones first:

Monday, March 25, 2013

Combating the Naysayers

We noticed this letter as
a response to our article in the Sunday Tasmanian of a week or so ago (March 17th).This is from our usual pro-car anti-public
transport naysayer.So as to avoid
giving him further undeserved attention we will simply refer to him as Mr Car. Mr Car's letter is in italics. Our response to each paragraph of his letter is below it. Feel free to use some of our arguments in a letter to the newspaper. We don't think Mr Car deserves any more attention, so we won't be writing any letter in response to this one.

Toby Rowallan perpetuates the fallacy that spending
hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a northern suburbs light-rail
system, at the expense of hospitals, schools and other deserving
infrastructure, would relieve traffic congestion on the Brooker.

Firstly Mr Car, you've clearly not read either the article or the Northern Suburbs Light Rail Business
Case properly. Constructing the line to Claremont with electric
overhead vehicles was costed at just $92 million. If we compared this to the Brooker Highway upgrades at over $215
million, for less than 3km and only three intersections upgraded, I wonder what
hospitals and schools would Mr Car like to close for that? Secondly we made the suggestion that this
need not be taken from the State Budget, but land could be offered to
developers and the money from those sales be used to pay the capital cost. We’re also highlighting that the railway will
affect much more than simply congestion, which Mr Car seems to have ignored.

He talks about the need to move people as
if the good citizens of the northern suburbs are cattle to be moved from farms
to stockyards, or packages to be transported as freight.

No, we didn't. We talked about the need to move thousands of
people into and out of Macquarie Point on a daily basis. Unfortunately the Mercury added 'The Northern Suburbs' to that sentence which confused the context. Nonetheless it is a big step to refer to people as cattle or packages. How desperate is Mr Car getting? The need for Macquarie Point and the Northern Suburbs Railway is there because that’s what people
willwant. How are that many people going to move in and out of the area with just cars or
shuttle buses?

Except in special circumstances requiring special
vehicles – patients transported by ambulance to hospitals, prisoners in prison
vans moved from courts to jail, or military personnel assigned on defence
duties – people in democratic societies are free to travel where and when they
like and by whatever mode of travel they choose, subject to budget and
institutional constraints.

Here the constraints that Mr
Car is happy to have, is that those who cannot drive, those who cannot afford to
drive, are forgotten. Hobart’s problem is precisely that people
cannot choose. Odd that he wants to
refer to our democracy when we have more political choices than available
transport choices! The people who are
transport disadvantaged, who have poor access to transport of any kind, are the
people that really need the Northern Suburbs Railway, as per MONA founder David
Walsh’s remarks quoted in our article. Mr
Car does not seem to be interested in this demographic.

Rail provides access only to destinations close to
stations at times determined by restricted timetables and therefore lacks the
flexibility of personal travel modes to access destinations throughout the urban
area at times that will suit the traveller.

Mr Car forgets or ignores
the fact that a rail service will have linked bus services. He ignores or forgets that with a 12-15 min
interval between services, the flexibility and accessibility of rail is far higher
than the majority of bus services in Hobart. The only bus service that is more frequent is
on Main Road,
and it is of course by far the most heavily utilised. A bit of a clue there, Mr Car.

The costs of motor car use – congestion, road
trauma and pollution – can, and inevitably will, be managed by congestion
charging as recommended in the Henry tax review, by safety improvements and by
the transition to electric vehicles.

Will they now? This is
perhaps Mr Car’s most extraordinary claim.
It would be a very brave politician to recommend congestion charging in Hobart. It would be an even braver one to do so
without providing an alternative transport choice at the same time. Very few recommendations contained within the
Henry tax review have been implemented.
This one is perhaps the least likely to affect Hobart.
Safety improvements continue with new car types but this is
irrelevant. Motor vehicle crashes will
also continue as long as people drive cars.
Mr Car also seems to have a great deal of faith in the apparently
imminent arrival of electric vehicles. I
hope he will tell us just which car manufacturers will be doing this, and why
everyone in Tasmania
will be able to afford to replace their current vehicle/s. Clearly the arrival of electric cars is not
nearly as imminent as Mr Car might wish.

Car use in developed countries is reaching
saturation levels due to the obvious fact that you can’t drive more than one
car at any one time.

Really? No Mr Car, it’s due to
population growth and the failure of governments to respond to increasing
demand for public transport. And yet despite these failures car use has also
peaked in many major cities in the developed world, whilst public transport use
continues to grow.

Meanwhile car use and low density suburban
development is increasing at rapid rates in countries throughout the developing
world.

This is not surprising as
cheap cars come onto the market in India
and China. However it is irrelevant to Hobart’s situation and provides no
justification for ignoring our opportunity to provide additional transport
choice. After all many of these
countries already have better public transport systems than we do!

Toby Rowallan’s vision of
high-density cities dependent on government-controlled public transport is a
throwback to the grim industrial days of the 19th century.

It is the vision of Future
Transport Tasmania,
not any one individual. But again Mr Car hasn't read what we've said. We’re
talking about higher density, not some sort of early industrial-age nightmare. We're talking about changing land use in the inner suburbs. We're not talking about Soviet or Chinese-style enormous high-rise apartment blocks! Mr Car should check his history as well - many public transport systems were constructed in the 20th century. We also can’t understand why Mr Car is so
afraid of government control. After all
it is the government that builds his roads, hospitals and schools. It is the government that owns Metro and
TasRail, and Forestry Tasmania.

With all of his comments Mr
Car fails to address how we are going to fund unrestrained growth in car
use. Highways are far more expensive
than the road lobby will admit. He fails
to address the issues of accessibility.
He has previously suggested small minivans be used for those who cannot
drive. A suggestion that sounds a lot
like taxis! He fails to address why the
car manufacturers have not started building his electrics cars. He fails to address how unrestrained suburban
sprawl can be afforded. He claims public
transport is 19th century – if so why are there over 50 light rail,
tram or commuter rail projects approved or under construction around the
world? Why have over 140 such systems
been constructed worldwide in the last 25 years? Why are Sydney,
Canberra, Gold Coast and Perth all planning or constructing new light
rail networks? Why are other centres in Australia agitating for the same, such as SunshineCoast
and Bendigo? The answer is that they are not doing it on a
whim. It is because rail is the most
efficient form of land transport.
Commuter rail services offer high frequency and reliability. They are far more accessible for people with
a disability or parents with a pram.
They enable people who cannot afford to drive, or are too young to
drive, to get access to employment, sporting and social events. They enable older people who are unable to
drive, to gain access to their family, other social engagements and health
services. People on commuter or light
rail services can continue to enjoy other activities, such as reading, using a
phone or personal computer, or listening to music. Some of those activities are much harder on a
bus that is lurching around corners and coming to a rapid unexpected stop.

Mr
Car has previously said that no city in the English speaking world the size of Hobart has a similar size
rail service. This is a neat cop-out
avoiding mention of dozens of European cities, including Bern, Lausanne and
Geneva in Switzerland, Takoaka in Japan, many in Germany including Magdeburg,
Rostock and Heidelberg, several in France including Le Havre, Mulhouse,
Grenoble and Montpelier. There are more
in Austria including at Graz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Trondheim in Norway, which
has a population of 168,000, also has an 8.8km tramline. There are many many
more, all around the same size as Hobart
or smaller, all with a rail service of some description, either trams, light
rail or a heavy rail service. We have a
list of over 90 such cities. Each of
these cities is different in one way or another to Hobart and each other. There are varying densities and the lines
cover varying proportions of those populations.
To claim that a rail service would not be appropriate in Hobart’s largest
population area is simply bizarre.

Finally,
the strangest thing in all of this;

As
recently as 2004 Mr Car wrote a letter advocating a light rail on the Northern
Suburbs. He seems to have forgotten why
he once did this. You can see it on our
Facebook group if you would like to join;

To lobby for and promote rail transport as a preferred option for bulk and intermodal freight

To lobby for and promote improvement and expansion of Tasmania’s rail infrastructure and network

-The retention of the Bridgewater to Hobart line- The reopening of various other lines eg. Derwent Valley, Wiltshire, Smithton and Scottsdale

To lobby for transport solutions to be integrated into urban and regional planning

PRIMARY RATIONALE

Climate change demands action, increased public transport services are inherent to this response

Increasing oil costs, together with the reality of Peak Oil will ensure that significant improvements to public transport services, with a much wider range of options, is necessary in the near future

Economic efficiency –assisting business and providing jobs

Equity and accessibility

Improved air quality and matching Tasmania’s Clean and Green brand

Addressing unsustainable traffic congestion

Removing discrimination –improving access to public transport for the disabled, elderly people and parents

More closely knit and cohesive communities;-eg. Neighbours who catch the same bus are much more likely to talk to one another in comparison to those who drive themselves to work

The notion that public transport systems or indeed a publicly owned rail system have to pay their own way is potentially counterproductive to the aim of such a system-Were Hobart’s old tram and suburban rail systems closed due to lack of patronage, or running costs?

Current demand is not relative to future use, simply because of the lack of current transport alternatives

Rail transport is potentially far more efficient than road, and has multiple benefits alongside decreasing carbon emissions, including;-significantly decreased road maintenance costs-potentially decreased road toll and associated costs relating to heavy vehicle crashes-Tasmania’s rail network was constructed in the 19th century and has to compete with a 20th century highway

MORE ABOUT US

Until now there has been no community-based group advocating public and rail transport. We are here to fill this gap and provide a voice for these issues in the public arena.

We mean business and will work as vigorously as any corporate lobby group does, except that unlike some we want to hear public opinion.

Membership of FTT is open to any person who wishes to be a part of it.

We are not affiliated with any political party. We welcome discussion of our agenda and ideas with anyone, and we hope to have discussions with all three major political parties in Tasmania about these issues.

Tasmania is currently re-defining itself. As part of this process of change and growth, in a vision of sustainability and progress, transport infrastructure is a vital part of nation (and state) building. Future Transport Tasmania aims to bring this vision of the future into today’s public debate.

For further information and comment:Toby Rowallan (Secretary) 0418 997 069Email: